skinem wrote:Well, in my neck of the woods it would appear that the candidates are slap-happy--or maybe punch-drunk...they're not playing well together.

Well, by the time I finish watching and listening to all the political ads, I don't think I'll want to vote for ANYONE! Do you think we could save some payroll expense by not electing anyone and just letting the bureacrats run things they way they always do, based on the laws and regulations currently on the books?

Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." -- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee

skinem wrote:Well, in my neck of the woods it would appear that the candidates are slap-happy--or maybe punch-drunk...they're not playing well together.

It's just as bad here in Western North Carolina. Both congressional candidates have been accused (by each other) of shady business practices, tax evasion, and you name it. And to make it worse, they are leaving messages on my home phone and business phone, so there is no escape. Wednesday can't come quickly enough for me!

"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once. Lately it hasn't been working."Anonymous

Just to pick a nit here, but if you were a teenager in the 60s, doesn't that mean you were a child in the 50s.

Which leads us to yet another quibbling point: 50's or 50s. That apostrophe should mean it's possessive, no?

Well, I was born in 1948, but I was in high school and college in the 60's (or 60s). The slang test asks what terms you used in high school or college, which is why I called myself a child of the 60's.

As for the apostrophe, I was taught that letters and numbers employed that punctuation mark to signify pluralization (e.g., "Your 3's look like 8's"). I've seen in both ways and am not bothered by either usage.

Since I am new to this forum, I would like to know how to upload an avatar, preferably the size of those of other members' avatars. I linked to one that I liked, but it came our extremely large. Is there a way to re-size it? Or is there a way to get the image, which I have saved, onto the forum?

I agree with Slava here-- IMHO we never use an apostrophe to make a plural under any circumstance. It's still the most distracting thing about reading the New York Times where they still employ the "1960's" format. To me that reads "Nineteen-sixty is".

And I really wonder if the lax application of this rule is what begat all the misuse of apostrophes: "hundred's of items"... "at it's finest" etc. You get the idea that nobody knows what they're for any more

I never saw the fascination with Strunk and White, although I somehow have managed to acquire two copies. I'm not sure why it's held in such reverence.

The reason I use the apostrophe with letters and numbers is that I don't want to worry over constructions like "I's" and "m's" (although I realize that I'm approaching consistency for its own sake rather than for other, more relevant reasons.

I'm happy to meet someone who knows everything, though, regardless of the difference of opinion.